My hypothesis, is that a large intake of visual and audio surroundings causes overload in the mind. Such overloads have been show in schizophrenics that are highly aware to their surroundings.

More importantly is how people have studied artists in a similar state as schizophrenics. For those who can take in surroundings and memorize them, they may become more creative.

This is not to say the person studying with music will become more intelligent or learn better.

Music will interfere with the subvocalization (the voice in your head that speaks while you read this) of the mind; therefore, being able to think clearly will be limited. With limited and tampered thinking ability, one can not study efficiently when listening to music.

The next time you are thinking about something, bite your tongue lightly and hold it. You may notice your subvocalization going away quickly or stuttering. This is something people do when being interrogated by lie detectors.

In other words, music interferes with subvocalization which then interferes with undestanding through thinking in your mind.

When in college, it is best to use music to block out the improper grammar and idiocy from near by students that talk in the library.

Depending on a situation, some people will listen to music, learn how to block it out, and then adjust their subvocalization to be "louder" than the music playing.

I can't study (understand and memorize concepts) when I'm listening music at the same time. When I'm studying I need silence and concentration. But when I'm solving problems or doing exercises, I'm listening music. It is relaxing.

The only place that I can study without music is at my house. However, I'm in grad school now... and i have to study whenever I get a chance.

And, i know that i'm easily distracted by.. noises, other peoples conversation, people in the hallway .. or those walking by my desk .. these things are all annoying ittle counter-productive distractions.

But, when I put my headphones on it makes me less aware of the distracting sounds around me and it helps me to stay focused (as long as it's not a catchy song that i want to sing).

Also, I find that people tend to not-disturb me...when i put my headphones on.

mithrilhack wrote:Notice that even when a computer is multi-tasking, it's not working on everything at once, it's simply dividing it's time spending perhaps a few microseconds on each task...

Of course, our brains are different and may prove to have parallel processing capabilities.

i do not think so..
even i'm not advanced in computer system--like make an OS or programs--but i think it depend on your RAM and the MoBo--motherboard--, and the FSB of your CPU...
i mean computer do them all by that time, not at different time...
well, there is priority tho do them... large "bandwith" for the program you use that time beside the other, and the small "bandwith" for the progam which is behind your window...

I know it, because when I use Free RAM XP(freeware)--program to clean useless memory in my RAM--it goes faster after it has cleaned the RAM... and also in windows task manager we get the graph from how many task and memories used to do the active progam(s).. more you give order to your com.. it will increase the graph--the memories is used larger..